Results for 'Contingentism'

51 found
Order:
  1. Defending contingentism in metaphysics.Kristie Miller - 2009 - Dialectica 63 (1):23-49.
    Metaphysics is supposed to tell us about the metaphysical nature of our world: under what conditions composition occurs; how objects persist through time; whether properties are universals or tropes. It is near orthodoxy that whichever of these sorts of metaphysical claims is true is necessarily true. This paper looks at the debate between that orthodox view and a recently emerging view that claims like these are contingent, by focusing on the metaphysical debate between monists and pluralists about concrete particulars. This (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   48 citations  
  2. Propositional Contingentism.Peter Fritz - 2016 - Review of Symbolic Logic 9 (1):123-142.
    According to propositional contingentism, it is contingent what propositions there are. This paper presents two ways of modeling contingency in what propositions there are using two classes of possible worlds models. The two classes of models are shown to be equivalent as models of contingency in what propositions there are, although they differ as to which other aspects of reality they represent. These constructions are based on recent work by Robert Stalnaker; the aim of this paper is to explain, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  3. Contingentism in Metaphysics.Kristie Miller - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (11):965-977.
    In a lot of domains in metaphysics the tacit assumption has been that whichever metaphysical principles turn out to be true, these will be necessarily true. Let us call necessitarianism about some domain the thesis that the right metaphysics of that domain is necessary. Necessitarianism has flourished. In the philosophy of maths we find it held that if mathematical objects exist, then they do of necessity. Mathematical Platonists affirm the necessary existence of mathematical objects (see for instance Hale and Wright (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  4. No-futurism and Metaphysical Contingentism.Baptiste Le Bihan - 2014 - Axiomathes 24 (4):483-497.
    According to no-futurism, past and present entities are real, but future ones are not. This view faces a skeptical challenge (Bourne 2002, 2006, Braddon-Mitchell, 2004): if no-futurism is true, how do you know you are present? I shall propose a new skeptical argument based on the physical possibility of Gödelian worlds (1949). This argument shows that a no-futurist has to endorse a metaphysical contingentist reading of no-futurism, the view that no-futurism is contingently true. But then, the no-futurist has to face (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  5. In Defence of Hybrid Contingentism.Lukas Skiba - 2022 - Philosophers' Imprint 22 (4):1-30.
    Hybrid contingentism combines first-order contingentism, the view that it is contingent what individuals there are, with higher-order necessitism, the view that it is non-contingent what properties and propositions there are (where these are conceived as entities in the range of appropriate higher-order quantifiers). This combination of views avoids the most delicate problems afflicting alternative contingentist positions while preserving the central contingentist claim that ordinary, concrete entities exist contingently. Despite these attractive features, hybrid contingentism is usually faced with (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  6.  95
    Contingentism and fragile worlds.Christopher James Masterman - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Propositional contingentism is the thesis that there might have been propositions which might have not have been something. Serious actualism is the thesis that it is impossible for a property to be exemplified without there being something which exemplifies it. Both are popular. Likewise, the dominant view in the metaphysics of modality is that metaphysical possibility and necessity can be understood – in some sense – in terms of possible worlds, i.e. total ways the world could have been. Here, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Higher-Order Contingentism, Part 1: Closure and Generation.Peter Fritz & Jeremy Goodman - 2016 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 45 (6):645-695.
    This paper is a study of higher-order contingentism – the view, roughly, that it is contingent what properties and propositions there are. We explore the motivations for this view and various ways in which it might be developed, synthesizing and expanding on work by Kit Fine, Robert Stalnaker, and Timothy Williamson. Special attention is paid to the question of whether the view makes sense by its own lights, or whether articulating the view requires drawing distinctions among possibilities that, according (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   38 citations  
  8. Propositional contingentism and possible worlds.Christopher James Masterman - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-34.
    Propositional contingentism is the view that what propositions there are is a contingent matter—certain propositions ontologically depend on objects which themselves only contingently exist. Possible worlds are, loosely, complete ways the world could have been. That is to say, the ways in which everything in its totality could have been. Propositional contingentists make use of possible worlds frequently. However, a neglected, but important, question concerns whether there are any notions of worlds which are both theoretically adequate and consistent with (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  9. Metaphysical Contingentism.Kristie Miller - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 405-420.
    Let us distinguish two kinds of contingentism: entity contingentism and metaphysical contingentism. Here, I use ‘entity’ very broadly to include anything over which we can quantify—objects (abstract and concrete), properties, and relations. Then entity contingentism about some entity, E, is the view that E exists contingently: that is, that E exists in some possible worlds and not in others. By contrast, entity necessitarianism about E is the view that E exists of necessity: that is, that E (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  10. Contingentism and paraphrase.Jonas Werner - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (2):565-582.
    One important challenge for contingentists is that they seem to be unable to account for the meaning of some apparently meaningful modal discourse that is perfectly intelligible for necessitists. This worry is particularly pressing for higher-order contingentists, contingentists who hold that it is not only contingent which objects there are, but also contingent which semantic values there are for higher-order variables to quantify over. Objections against higher-order contingentism along these lines have been presented in Williamson (Mind 119(475):657–748, 2010; Modal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Higher-Order Contingentism, Part 3: Expressive Limitations.Peter Fritz - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (4):649-671.
    Two expressive limitations of an infinitary higher-order modal language interpreted on models for higher-order contingentism – the thesis that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are – are established: First, the inexpressibility of certain relations, which leads to the fact that certain model-theoretic existence conditions for relations cannot equivalently be reformulated in terms of being expressible in such a language. Second, the inexpressibility of certain modalized cardinality claims, which shows that in such a language, higher-order contingentists (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  12. Moral Necessitism and Scientific Contingentism.Harjit Bhogal - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
    Here is a puzzling phenomenon. Moral theories are typically thought to be necessary. If act utilitarianism is true, for example, then it is necessarily true. However, scientific theories are typically thought to be contingent. If quantum field theory is true, it’s not necessarily true — the world could have been Newtonian. My aim is to explore this discrepancy between domains. -/- In particular, I explore the role of what I call `internality’ intuitions in motivating necessitism about both moral and scientific (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Necessitism, Contingentism, and Lewisian Modal Realism.Cristina Nencha - 2022 - Acta Analytica 37 (2):227-247.
    Necessitism is the controversial thesis that necessarily everything is necessarily something, namely that everything, everywhere, necessarily exists. What is controversial about necessitism is that, at its core, it claims that things could not have failed to exist, while we have a pre-theoretical intuition that not everything necessarily exists. Contingentism, in accordance with common sense, denies necessitism: it claims that some things could have failed to exist. Timothy Williamson is a necessitist and claims that David Lewis is a necessitist too. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. Grounding, Essence, and Contingentism.Karol Lenart - 2021 - Philosophia 49 (5):2157-2172.
    According to grounding necessitarianism if some facts ground another fact, then the obtaining of the former necessitates the latter. Proponents of grounding contingentism argue against this claim, stating that it is possible for the former facts to obtain without necessitating the latter. In this article I discuss a recent argument from restricted accidental generalisations provided by contingentists that advances such possibility. I argue that grounding necessitarianism can be defended against it. To achieve this aim, I postulate a relationship between (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  15. Properties in a Contingentist's Domain.Kristie Miller - 2013 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (2):225-245.
    This article attempts to make sense of property contingentism, the view that the metaphysical nature of properties is contingent. That is, it is contingent whether properties are universals or tropes or some other kind of entity. The article argues that even if one thinks that necessities are exhausted by conceptual truths and a posteriori necessities, the sort of methodology that can lead one to endorse contingentism in various domains in metaphysics does not give us good grounds to suppose (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Symmetry and Hybrid Contingentism.Maegan Fairchild - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all obvious (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  17. Against Moral Contingentism.Pekka Väyrynen - 2021 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 10 (3):209-217.
    [This paper is available as open access from the publisher.]The conventional wisdom in ethics is that pure moral laws are at least metaphysically necessary. By contrast, Moral Contingentism holds that pure moral laws are metaphysically contingent. This paper raises a normative objection to Moral Contingentism: it is worse equipped than Moral Necessitarianism to account for the normative standing or authority of the pure moral laws to govern the lives of the agents to whom they apply. Since morality is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  18. Higher-Order Contingentism, Part 2: Patterns of Indistinguishability.Peter Fritz - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (3):407-418.
    The models of contingency in what propositions, properties and relations there are developed in Part 1 are related to models of contingency in what propositions there are due to Robert Stalnaker. It is shown that some but not all of the classes of models of Part 1 agree with Stalnaker’s models concerning the patterns of contingency in what propositions there are they admit. Further structural connections between the two kinds of models are explored.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  19. Grounding and the Objection from Accidental Generalizations.Brannon McDaniel - 2017 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (3):178-184.
    Monistic grounding says that there is one fundamental ground, while pluralistic grounding says that there are many such grounds. Grounding necessitarianism says that grounding entails, but is not reducible to, necessitation, while grounding contingentism says that there are at least some cases where grounding does not entail necessitation. Pluralistic grounding necessitarianism is a very popular position, but accidental generalizations, such as ‘all solid gold spheres are less than one mile in diameter’, pose well-known problems for this view: the many (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  20. Emergentism and the Contingent Solubility of Salt.Lok-Chi Chan - 2018 - Theoria 84 (4):309-324.
    Alexander Bird (2001; 2002; 2007) offers a powerful argument showing that, regardless of whether necessitarianism or contingentism about laws is true, salt necessarily dissolves in water. The argument is that the same laws of nature that are necessary for the constitution of salt necessitate the solubility of salt. This paper shows that Bird’s argument faces a serious objection if the possibility of emergentism – in particular, C. D. Broad’s account – is taken into account. The idea is (roughly) that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  21. Contingent Existence and the Reduction of Modality to Essence.Trevor Teitel - 2019 - Mind 128 (509):39-68.
    This paper first argues that we can bring out a tension between the following three popular doctrines: (i) the canonical reduction of metaphysical modality to essence, due to Fine, (ii) contingentism, which says that possibly something could have failed to be something, and (iii) the doctrine that metaphysical modality obeys the modal logic S5. After presenting two such arguments (one from the theorems of S4 and another from the theorems of B), I turn to exploring various conclusions we might (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  22. Ontology of sentential moods.Berislav Žarnić - 2016 - In Brożek Anna, Chybińska Alicja, Grygianiec Mariusz & Tkaczyk Marcin (eds.), Myśli o języku, nauce i wartościach. Seria druga. Profesorowi Jackowi Juliuszowi Jadackiemu w siedemdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin. Warsaw: Semper. pp. 323-339.
    In this paper ontological implications of the Barcan formula and its converse will be discussed at the conceptual and technical level. The thesis that will be defended is that sentential moods are not ontologically neutral since the rejection of ontological implications of Barcan formula and its converse is a condition of a possibility of the imperative mood. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first section a systematization of semantical systems of quantified modal logic is introduced for the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Modal Ontology and Generalized Quantifiers.Peter Fritz - 2013 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (4):643-678.
    Timothy Williamson has argued that in the debate on modal ontology, the familiar distinction between actualism and possibilism should be replaced by a distinction between positions he calls contingentism and necessitism. He has also argued in favor of necessitism, using results on quantified modal logic with plurally interpreted second-order quantifiers showing that necessitists can draw distinctions contingentists cannot draw. Some of these results are similar to well-known results on the relative expressivity of quantified modal logics with so-called inner and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  24. In Defense of the Possibilism–Actualism Distinction.Christopher Menzel - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (7):1971-1997.
    In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson claims that the possibilism-actualism (P-A) distinction is badly muddled. In its place, he introduces a necessitism-contingentism (N-C) distinction that he claims is free of the confusions that purportedly plague the P-A distinction. In this paper I argue first that the P-A distinction, properly understood, is historically well-grounded and entirely coherent. I then look at the two arguments Williamson levels at the P-A distinction and find them wanting and show, moreover, that, when the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  25. The limits of non-standard contingency.Robert Michels - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (2):533-558.
    Gideon Rosen has recently sketched an argument which aims to establish that the notion of metaphysical modality is systematically ambiguous. His argument contains a crucial sub-argument which has been used to argue for Metaphysical Contingentism, the view that some claims of fundamental metaphysics are metaphysically contingent rather than necessary. In this paper, Rosen’s argument is explicated in detail and it is argued that the most straight-forward reconstruction fails to support its intended conclusion. Two possible ways to save the argument (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  26. Grounding, Contingency and Transitivity.Roberto Loss - 2017 - Ratio 30 (1):1-14.
    Grounding contingentism is the doctrine according to which grounds are not guaranteed to necessitate what they ground. In this paper I will argue that the most plausible version of contingentism is incompatible with the idea that the grounding relation is transitive, unless either ‘priority monism’ or ‘contrastivism’ are assumed.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  27. Necessary Laws and Chemical Kinds.Nora Berenstain - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (4):631-647.
    Contingentism, generally contrasted with law necessitarianism, is the view that the laws of nature are contingent. It is often coupled with the claim that their contingency is knowable a priori. This paper considers Bird's (2001, 2002, 2005, 2007) arguments for the thesis that, necessarily, salt dissolves in water; and it defends his view against Beebee's (2001) and Psillos's (2002) contingentist objections. A new contingentist objection is offered and several reasons for scepticism about its success are raised. It is concluded (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  28. Model Theory and Contingent Existence.Boris Kment - 2016 - Analysis 76 (2):172-190.
    Contingentism is the view that it is possible for there to be contingent existents. Timothy Williamson has argued that contingentists cannot provide a satisfactory interpretation of the possible-world semantics for modal logic. This paper aims to provide such an interpretation on behalf of contingentists.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  29.  57
    Some Ways the Ways the World Could Have Been Can’t Be.Christopher James Masterman - 2024 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 53 (4):997-1025.
    Let serious propositional contingentism (SPC) be the package of views which consists in (i) the thesis that propositions expressed by sentences featuring terms depend, for their existence, on the existence of the referents of those terms, (ii) serious actualism—the view that it is impossible for an object to exemplify a property and not exist—and (iii) contingentism—the view that it is at least possible that some thing might not have been something. SPC is popular and compelling. But what should (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  30. Against Grounding Necessitarianism.Alexander Skiles - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (4):717-751.
    Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   224 citations  
  31. Higher-order free logic and the Prior-Kaplan paradox.Andrew Bacon, John Hawthorne & Gabriel Uzquiano - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):493-541.
    The principle of universal instantiation plays a pivotal role both in the derivation of intensional paradoxes such as Prior’s paradox and Kaplan’s paradox and the debate between necessitism and contingentism. We outline a distinctively free logical approach to the intensional paradoxes and note how the free logical outlook allows one to distinguish two different, though allied themes in higher-order necessitism. We examine the costs of this solution and compare it with the more familiar ramificationist approaches to higher-order logic. Our (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  32. Laws of Nature: Necessary and Contingent.Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 72 (4):875-895.
    This paper shows how a niche account of the metaphysics of laws of nature and physical properties—the Powers-BSA—can underpin both a sense in which the laws are metaphysically necessary and a sense in which it is true that the laws could have been different. The ability to reconcile entrenched disagreement should count in favour of a philosophical theory, so this paper constitutes a novel argument for the Powers-BSA by showing how it can reconcile disagreement about the laws’ modal status. This (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  33. Quantificational Logic and Empty Names.Andrew Bacon - 2013 - Philosophers' Imprint 13.
    The result of combining classical quantificational logic with modal logic proves necessitism – the claim that necessarily everything is necessarily identical to something. This problem is reflected in the purely quantificational theory by theorems such as ∃x t=x; it is a theorem, for example, that something is identical to Timothy Williamson. The standard way to avoid these consequences is to weaken the theory of quantification to a certain kind of free logic. However, it has often been noted that in order (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  34. Grounding, Necessity, and Relevance.Salim Hireche - 2023 - Philosophical Studies:1-22.
    Grounding necessitarianism (GN) is the view that full grounds necessitate what they ground. Although GN has been rather popular among philosophers, it faces important counterexamples: For instance, A=[Socrates died] fully grounds C=[Xanthippe became a widow]. However, A fails to necessitate C: A could have obtained together with B=[Socrates and Xanthippe were never married], without C obtaining. In many cases, the debate essentially reduces to whether A indeed fully grounds C – as the contingentist claims – or if instead C is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  35. Inevitability, contingency, and epistemic humility.Ian James Kidd - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 55:12-19.
    I reject both (a) inevitabilism about the historical development of the sciences and (b) what Ian Hacking calls the "put up or shut up" argument against those who make contingentist claims. Each position is guilty of a lack of humility about our epistemic capacities.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  36. State of the field: Are the results of science contingent or inevitable?Katherina Kinzel - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 52:55-66.
    This paper presents a survey of the literature on the problem of contingency in science. The survey is structured around three challenges faced by current attempts at understanding the conflict between “contingentist” and “inevitabilist” interpretations of scientific knowledge and practice. First, the challenge of definition: it proves hard to define the positions that are at stake in a way that is both conceptually rigorous and does justice to the plethora of views on the issue. Second, the challenge of distinction: some (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  37. Are Fundamental Laws Necessary or Contingent?Noa Latham - 2011 - In Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Matthew H. Slater (eds.), Carving nature at its joints: natural kinds in metaphysics and science. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. pp. 97-112.
    This chapter focuses on the dispute between necessitarians and contingentists, mainly addressing the issue as to whether laws of nature are metaphysically necessary or metaphysically contingent with a weaker kind of necessity, commonly referred to as natural, nomological, or nomic necessity. It is assumed here that all fundamental properties are dispositional or role properties, making the dispute a strictly verbal one. The existence of categorical intrinsic properties as well as dispositional properties is also assumed and the relationship between them examined. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  38. Grounding as Minimal Necessitation.Brannon McDaniel - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy:1-22.
    Let NNG be the claim that necessitation is necessary for grounding, and let NSG be the claim that necessitation is sufficient for grounding. The consensus view is that grounding cannot be reduced to necessitation, and this is due to the (approximately) universally-accepted claim that NSG is false. Among deniers of NSG: grounding contingentists think NNG is also false, but they are in the minority compared to grounding necessitarians who uphold NNG. For one who would defend the claim that grounding is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  39. Feyerabend on pluralism, contingency, and humility.Ian James Kidd - forthcoming - Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy 20 (2):1-22.
    Throughout the writings of Paul Feyerabend, there are constant references to the historical contingency of the scientific enterprise, often accompanied by philosophical claims about the significance of that contingency. This paper presents those contingentist claims, situates them in the context of more recent work on the contingency of science, and offers an interpretation of their significance. I suggest that Feyerabend’s sense of contingency was connected to his defences of pluralism, and also to the ‘conquest of abundance’ narrative developed in the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  40. Chance and the Structure of Modal Space.Boris Kment - 2018 - Mind 127 (507):633-665.
    The sample space of the chance distribution at a given time is a class of possible worlds. Thanks to this connection between chance and modality, one’s views about modal space can have significant consequences in the theory of chance and can be evaluated in part by how plausible these implications are. I apply this methodology to evaluate certain forms of modal contingentism, the thesis that some facts about what is possible are contingent. Any modal contingentist view that meets certain (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  41. Contingency, Sociality, and Moral Progress.Olof Leffler - 2024 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 10 (3):522-541.
    A debate has recently appeared regarding whether non-naturalism is better than other metaethical views at explaining moral progress. I shall take the occasion of this debate to present a novel debunking dilemma for moral non-naturalists, extending Sharon Street's Darwinian one. I will argue that moral progress indicates that our moral attitudes tend to reflect contingent sociocultural and psychological factors. For non-naturalists, there is then either a relation between these factors and the moral facts, non-naturalistically construed, or there is not. If (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. The Π-Theorem as a Guide to Quantity Symmetries and the Argument Against Absolutism.Mahmoud Jalloh - 2024 - In Dean W. Zimmerman & Karen Bennett (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 14. Oxford University Press.
    In this paper a symmetry argument against quantity absolutism is amended. Rather than arguing against the fundamentality of intrinsic quantities on the basis of transformations of basic quantities, a class of symmetries defined by the Π-theorem is used. This theorem is a fundamental result of dimensional analysis and shows that all unit-invariant equations which adequately represent physical systems can be put into the form of a function of dimensionless quantities. Quantity transformations that leave those dimensionless quantities invariant are empirical and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. What Can Our Best Scientific Theories Tell Us About The Modal Status of Mathematical Objects?Joe Morrison - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (4):1391-1408.
    Indispensability arguments are used as a way of working out what there is: our best science tells us what things there are. Some philosophers think that indispensability arguments can be used to show that we should be committed to the existence of mathematical objects (numbers, functions, sets). Do indispensability arguments also deliver conclusions about the modal properties of these mathematical entities? Colyvan (in Leng, Paseau, Potter (eds) Mathematical knowledge, OUP, Oxford, 109-122, 2007) and Hartry Field (Realism, mathematics and modality, Blackwell, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Modal Arguments, Possible Evidence and Contingent Metaphysics.Michael Traynor - 2017 - Dissertation, St Andrews
    The present work explores various ways in which contingent evidence can impact metaphysics, while advocating that, just as a scientific realist allows for ampliative inferences to the unobservable, ampliative inferences from possible evidence can warrant possibility claims that lie beyond the reach of sensorial imagination. In slogan form: possible evidence is a guide to possibility. Drawing on Shoemaker’s (1969) argument for the possibility of time without change, I advocate the following principle: If there is a possible world at which the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. The Reduction of Necessity to Essence.Andreas Ditter - 2020 - Mind 129 (514):351-380.
    In "Essence and Modality", Kit Fine proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects whatsoever. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defense of the thesis in the context of LE. His defense rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  46. Reply to Fine.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):571-583.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  47. Modal science.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):453-492.
    This paper explains and defends the idea that metaphysical necessity is the strongest kind of objective necessity. Plausible closure conditions on the family of objective modalities are shown to entail that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. Evidence is provided that some objective modalities are studied in the natural sciences. In particular, the modal assumptions implicit in physical applications of dynamical systems theory are made explicit by using such systems to define models of a modal temporal logic. Those assumptions (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   100 citations  
  48. Powers as Mereological Lawmakers.Michael Traynor - 2023 - In Christopher J. Austin, Anna Marmodoro & Andrea Roselli (eds.), Powers, Parts and Wholes: Essays on the Mereology of Powers. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 83-95.
    This chapter explores a potential analogy between mereological principles and laws of nature. Against a backdrop of what Marmodoro has termed ‘power structuralism’ (and a rejection of a Humean worldview), the connection between parthood and modality may be richer than has hitherto been considered. Mereological principles delineate possibilities for parts and wholes, and putting powers at the centre of a discussion about parthood can furnish a novel conception of mereological laws, much as dispositionalism has done so for natural laws; namely, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  49. Reply to Sider.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):699-708.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  50.  99
    The epistemic objection against perdurantism.Emanuele Tullio & Tommaso Soriani - 2024 - Synthese 204 (3):1-20.
    According to Perdurantism, persons are identical to maximal aggregates of appropriately interrelated temporal parts. Within the Perdurantist framework, an epistemic concern arises, targeting the perduring persons’ belief that they are persons, suggesting that, ultimately, they are not in a position to know that they are persons as opposed to temporal parts. Despite the consideration it has received over the years, this concern has not yet been converted into a full-fledged objection. This paper aims to address this gap by exploring the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 51